Newsletter

Sage brings eclectic menu to Savannah's Whitaker Street

Last week I ate for the first time at Sage, yet another fine new entry in the downtown dining scene.

Sage is located at 41 Whitaker St. between Congress and Broughton streets.

There have been a couple of restaurants there in recent years, but I still think of the space as the former home of Sushi Zen, which moved to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in 2008.

Sage occupies a narrow storefront that’s easy to miss if you’re zooming along Whitaker, but the interior is as pleasant as ever.

There’s a comfortable bar and a handful of tables at street level with additional seating in the second floor loft.

I really like the variety of flavors and price points on Sage’s welcoming menu.

There’s a burger ($10) and a portabella burger ($9), both served with wonderful truffle fries. There are a number of other entrees under $15.

The appetizers include a delicious and hearty serving of calamari ($8) and a couple of different soups ($7).

For my entrée I had the bone-in pork saltimbocca ($19) served with penne pesto and vegetables. On my next trip I’ll probably try one of the four paellas ($19-$24).

Sage, which describes its menu as continental with Spanish and Mediterranean influences, is also doing Sunday brunch with items starting at $8.

Sage can be found on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/sageofsavannah) and serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Sunday brunch runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Additional hours might be added down the road.

So, if you’re following the downtown food scene, the following restaurants have opened within a mile or so of each other since the first of the year: a.lure, Fire Street Food, Lime Grill, McDonald’s, Maxwell’s, Sage, Subway and Taco Del Mar.

The Sparetime, a bar with a great but limited food menu, opened as well.

And I’m guessing I’ve missed one or two that have slipped under the City Talk radar.

We’re going to need to see a busy spring segue into a busy summer for all those new places plus the existing ones to thrive.

We also have a number of new restaurants in the works, and there are still some highly visible vacancies, including the spaces last occupied by aVida, Kokopelli’s and Shipwreck.

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see the scene evolve.

March employment numbers show weakness of recovery

On Tuesday, I wrote about the slow recovery in the housing market, which is surely a major contributor to the disappointing jobs data released last week by the Georgia Department of Labor.

New residential construction is typically a driver of economic recoveries, but that’s impossible this time around with so many existing homes on the market.

According to last week’s numbers from the survey of payroll establishments, Georgia had 35,600 more jobs in March than in March 2011.

But 27,400 of those additional jobs were in the Atlanta metro area. That represents decent job growth for Atlanta, but bad news for most of the rest of the state.

The Savannah metro area — Chatham, Bryan and Effingham counties — lost 300 jobs over the last year, according to the data.

Year-over-year job losses occurred in a variety of sectors of the local economy, including construction (-300), retail trade (-800) and leisure and hospitality (-200).

We gained 500 jobs year-over-year in local manufacturing, one of the few hopeful signs in last week’s release.

In recent columns I have posited some upside scenarios for the local economy, but we sure won’t be seeing a faster recovery if the employment numbers continue to disappoint.

Despite the shrinking employment base, we’re continuing to see a decline in the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance. That number fell 10.8 percent in March compared to March 2011.

But there were still 1,303 initial unemployment claims in March in the Savannah metro area, which is depressingly high when compared with the 590 claims in March 2007.

We might get slightly more promising data soon when the Department of Labor releases local unemployment rates along with the results of the March survey of households.

Sometimes the household survey reveals job growth before it shows up in the establishment survey cited above.

In this fragile employment environment, we need to continue to see focused public policy efforts that maximize the chances for the opening of new businesses and the expansion of existing ones.

City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.